Holy Bubba Takes on the World

“The police state will not be satisfied with your conduct, Holy Bubba,” said the suit pushing papers.

Holy Bubba pushed his alligator glasses to his nose. “Suck on this kick,” he grumbled, snapping the orange toothpick in his teeth. He pulled out his sidearm with a whir, blasting the buckshot in the suit’s double-breasted pockets. Holy Bubba revved out his bike and scrammed, replacing his orange toothpick with a red one.

The police state sent all its choppers and speed racers and whirlymagigs left over from World War Seventeen. The dust settled in the air. His bike coughed grime.

“We have you surrounded!” said the pigs from the back, speaking through the air. They always have you surrounded, thought Bubba and his treads screeched out a “7.”

“Come and get me,” Bubba rasped. He spat out his toothpick and punched his weapon toward the wild sun. The speeders went screaming past, sirens choking in the screams of twisted metal.

Holy Bubba flipped a mean bitch and went hauling toward the pile. “It’s go time.” He hit a trail where the cars stacked just right. Holy Bubba went flying at the two choppers. “Here. Catch.” He loosed his bucking bronco into the wings of the savage angel, chucking his gun into the other whooping bird. They ground out their last song and he went tumbling after.

“Looks like this just wasn’t my day,” Holy Bubba said to the broken pavement, tucking a blue toothpick beneath his gums.

How to Make a Thanksgiving the Single Bachelor Way

Ingredients:

2 pieces of toasted Wonder Bread (toasting optional)

1 piece of bologna

1 piece of Kraft cheddar slices

1 or more heaping spoonfuls of mayonnaise, to taste

12-pack of beer (splurge on something festive, like pumpkin spice or winter ale. It’s Thanksgiving, after all)

1 porno

Directions:

Call your parents and tell them you’re heading to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving. If they live close to you, then you’re out of town on business or, again, visiting a friend. If you have no friends, just throw out a name. What do they know about your personal life, anyway? They never cared about you when you were a kid and the only reason they keep tabs on you now is because they can’t stand the sight of each other now that your dad’s retired and they want you to take them in when they get too old to wipe themselves. Make the phone call short. You still need to get showered and dress to visit your “friend.” Tell them he has a fiancée who has friends and family coming over. You have to look freshen up and bring a dessert. Ignore your mom’s question about when you’re ever going to find a nice girl and settle down. She won’t press the matter anyway, since she figures your friend’s fiancée will probably hook you up with someone. Remind her that you have to go get dressed. She’ll hang up satisfied that you’re finally hanging with good company. As soon as you hang up, you’re ready to start preparing dinner.

Assembling bologna sandwich: For a toasted sandwich, put bread into toaster. The toast is only just tall enough to give you a false sense of security before burning your damn hands on the metal top, so remember to push up the tab with one hand and take the toast out with the other. Have plate ready. If you have no clean plates, just use your hand. Take butter knife and slather desired amount of mayonnaise on bread. Stack pre-sliced cheese on bologna slice and place in between bread.

Put porno in your DVD player. Change setting on TV to video 1. Start popping open beers with your bottle opener keychain. Take a sip every time you see boobies and chug the rest whenever there’s a money shot. Eat some of the sandwich in between sips. It will soak up a little of the beer. Now that you’re shitfaced and the movie’s over, change the channel back to normal TV. Food network. Some hot blond is cooking Thanksgiving food. Imagine bending her over the counter and start jerking off. Pass out with a line of your spunk still running down your thigh. It should dry by the time Iron Chef comes on. Thanksgiving is technically over by then anyway.

Mikael and Earl

Mikael and Earl have two different philosophies on vampirism. Mikael only turns beautiful people—men, women, it doesn’t matter. He lusts for young blood. For Mikael, vampires are meant to be a race removed, to look different and superior to the flesh they feed upon. Earl, on the other hand, feels that there needed to be variety in the vampire kingdom. There can’t just be beautiful vampires. It just isn’t natural! Earl doesn’t discriminate when he turns his victims into creatures of the night.

Mikael and Earl try to thwart each other’s philosophies on vampirism by creating more vampires in their image. Mikael stays out late into the night to find more beautiful people. Even though his vampires are often leaner, younger, and more physically fit, Mikael is frustrated to find that Earl can tap into any resources that he wants. Earl begins making an army of the sick and old, the very young and the deformed. Mikael and his vampires begin killing off anyone who isn’t beautiful.

Mikael and Earl start a war with each other over their philosophies on vampirism. Mikael’s troops are small, adopting the principles of guerrilla warfare. They strike from the shadows and they kill off Earl’s supply of food and troops. Earl’s troops march the streets en masse. Every night, gunfire and violence erupts in the street. The residents of the city and some of the vampires who treasure their immortal lives flee for safer territories.

Mikael and Earl kill each other over their philosophies on vampirism.

Kochira Koso

Trevor was surprised to see the helpful Hiroshima University professor walking out of the public restroom of the bus station.

“You,” the professor said without a hint of animosity. He was simply surprised and had forgotten his formalities.

“Professor Takashima, what are you doing here?”

“I was taking a walk. I had to use the toilet,” he laughed.

Hiroshima was not a small city and Trevor was also a little shocked. He wondered for a moment if the professor was stalking him but pushed the thought from his mind. Given a few moments, he remembered himself and bowed his head. “Thank you for helping me out the other day.”

“Iie. Kochira koso. You know, I am a teacher of mathematics. This is a very low statistical probability that we meet again.”

Trevor thought of his parents, about how they would have said that it was “fate” or that “everything happens for a reason.” Those words didn’t have any meaning for Trevor anymore—they were just empty mantras; unanswerable koans—but after the professor had helped him off the street and into a hostel, and their meeting again, he was tempted to think there was something as trivial as “fate.” Still, Trevor liked the professor’s answer better.

“I was able to get to a bank and cash my traveler’s checks. Here’s the money I owe you for the hostel.” Trevor handed the money with one hand. Takashima-sensei took the money with both hands and bowed. Trevor scratched his head, unsure what to say or do next. He figured he would have left the money with the university, but being able to pay the professor back in person and knowing he had received the money made Trevor feel the greatest sense of relief.

“How long until you meet your friend?” Professor Takashima broke the silence.

“Oh,” I shuffled in my pocket for my ticket. “About an hour.” I showed it to him, since he could read it better.

“Aa. Soo. Soo. Well, I can show you the peace park quickly.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

Professor Takashima breathed a quick “ikimashoo” before they left. He told Trevor that they would only be able to see the Bomb Dome before he had to catch his bus. Trevor said that was fine. It was more than enough and Trevor did not want to feel that he owed this beneficent instructor any more than he already did.

The professor led Trevor to the Bomb Dome, an eaten-out shell of a building, supported by a collection of braces. The professor looked aloof and a little unimpressed. He had probably seen it too many times to care. He asked Trevor if he had a camera. Trevor dug into his bulging pockets and handed the device to the professor. “Big smile!” the professor shouted and Trevor had never felt so awkward as he was standing in front of a building that represented how his people had murdered thousands of the professor’s people while smiling like an idiot.

The professor stopped before a bridge and pointed. “This is where the bomb exploded.” He pointed up. “500 meters up there.” Trevor was amazed. He was prepared to see a crater or something, maybe a part of the landscape changed. Everything looked greener, actually, when he pointed it out. He was amazed, not because a bomb had exploded here, but he knew that every citizen of this city has this spot, 500 meters in the sky, burned into their collective imagination. “This park,” he explained, “is a monument to the rebirth of life.” Trevor scratched his beard, lost for words.

Thinking of the bomb, he thought of saying it was “fate” or that “everything happens for a reason.” In this situation, with so many lives lost, the words sounded so cold. He thought about the statistical probability of the bombs dropping over not dropping. He imagined a world in which the bombs were not dropped. The mere possibility of that scenario made him feel warm.

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“Kochira koso.”

On Becoming

I’m nervous for what will become of me. Not really of what will become of me. I’m secure in that aspect. I think I will be an okay person, but I’m nervous about the situations I will be placed in come tomorrow and the day and the year after. From now on, I will be… let’s just say I will be not quite myself. Or I will becoming someone else… something else. Whatever. It’s not like it’s the first time. We go through childhood, puberty, and all those little stages in between. It’s not like become a werewolf is that weird, is it? Well, at least it takes some getting used to…

A Really Good Word

“Can you write a flash fiction in just one word?” I asked my professor.

“It would have to be a really good word,” he laughed.

“Fuck.”

Tawny Braids

Tawny braids swing like a metronome in front of my nose. I can almost smell her hair, that mixture of shampoo and her own natural oils. I so want to just walk up to her and smell her hair. I want to take her braids and pull them back, run my nose up and down each carefully wrought coil, taking a powerful sniff of both intricate cords. They’re French braids. Oo la la! I can’t even imagine how good they must smell, just brushing off the back of her neck with her every step. If only I could just take one smell, one whiff, then I would be satisfied. Ah, but she would hate me. She’d hate me and then I’d never see those braids again. Cupid, that horrid little monster, has made it my fate to watch, to be teased by these bouncing, curving, magnificent locks of hair. But I get the last laugh. Every morning as she walks six blocks to work, I know I am one of the few people in the entire world able to lay eyes on braids so immaculate as these. Oh, but I can only imagine how they must smell!

The Life of a Young Rainbow

The rainbow was born after a long, dreary rain. Yes, there were still clouds, but the rainbow thought they looked pretty against the blue sky. The rainbow looked down at the ground and saw how the dew glittered and the streams flowing into the gutters looked so busy against the quiet streets. The birds, it noticed, were all flying out from the dripping trees, excited by the promise of fresh food and the opportunity to stretch out their claustrophobic wings. They sang as they flew. The rainbow saw all of this and reached its prismatic arms down to greet its true worshippers: the worms. For the rainbow knew that, like the blind earthworms lost on the pavement, it too would die as soon as the rain had dried from the ground.

Apple Boy

Long ago, before he was even called Apple Boy, a young boy of ten years of age was eating an apple. His mother told him to cut it into slices and that he would get more apple that way and not be so wasteful.

“Not if I eat the whole apple!” exclaimed the boy before thrusting the core in this mouth.

“Stop! Don’t eat that! You’ll get seeds in your belly and an apple tree will grow inside you,” his mother scolded him, but the disobedient boy kept chewing and swallowed the core, seeds and all.

A few months later, the boy began to sprout tiny buds on his stomach. His mother acted like she was worried about the child, but she was secretly gloating that she was right about the seeds. By the time he was thirteen, he grew apples on his arms. Kids would pick apples off his arms in class and eat them. He would get in trouble for not bringing enough for everyone.

When Apple Boy turned eighteen, he had really sprouted up, his limbs branching out at great length. “This house is too small for me,” he told his mother, “I need to leave so that I can get more sunlight and rain to grow.”

His mother began to cry. “They grow up so fast!”

Thoughts on Walking

I am tired and lonely tonight. I think I’ll go for a walk. I just don’t know what I should do with myself. I live the life to laugh and win but in the end I’m alone again. If I was a pirate, I would sail all over the place, getting all sorts of booty (if you know what I’m sayin’). But I just wouldn’t be able to threaten someone else with a gun if it came down to it. I mean I guess I could be a pirate cook, if pirates even need cooks anymore. Maybe a pirate accountant. I could keep track of loot in a monetary value, keep it in stocks or real estate. Then again, I get motion sickness real bad. And I’ve never really been that great with math. It would probably be better if I stayed at home. Maybe kicked back and watched the television. But then T.V. makes me feel lonely, too. Even when I’m watching reality T.V., I just know all those people fighting are probably laughing together backstage afterwards. The world’s a stage and everyone else is having a good time together… except me. I wish I could just get out there and enjoy myself. Have a good time, you know? The only thing is that I can’t have a good time where everyone else has a good time. Night clubs? Too noisy. I’m not tall enough to hear anyone talk anyway. It’s just too much money to smile and nod. I’m not really into White Russians and abusing over-the-counter morphine like my friend is. I think I’m more of a glass-of-wine-a-day kind of guy, maybe chill with a small group of people and have some finger foods and stuff. I don’t really know anyone who likes to do that, though, and if I did I would be hanging out with them and not thinking about going out for an evening walk. Maybe I just need a woman. I could smother her with love and affection and cook for her and she would be all over me—she would need me. Or maybe I would make her as miserable as I am now. Maybe she’s not into wine and conversation. Maybe she likes to nod and smile. Maybe she likes morphine. God, I’m so lonely and tired tonight. I really think I should go for that walk.